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>I mentioned to my manager that I'd like to come up with a consistent
method for listing dimensions. He said "fine, but whichever order you
choose, I'd like to hear your justification."

Yikes! It is times like this that I feel fortunate not to have ever worked
for someone this unreasonable (or over-reaching).

Although consistency is very important... which order is chosen is
unimportant and justifying that order is just plain ridiculous!

My company builds SDN storage systems and the first spec sheet I designed,
listed dimensions as W x H x D - with bracketed metric values for each
dimension. With my most recent version, I present the dimensions as
annotations on images of our products. Annotations might be your answer!
You can justify this method by stating it offers a non-language specific
representation of the product's dimensions.

To lend credibility to my post, I analyzed a few specifications sheets for
you:

> In my current job, I write and maintain a lot of product specifications.
> The previous tech writer followed no consistent method in how he ordered
> these dimensions. Some are arranged as width x height x depth. Some as
> height x depth x width. You get the idea.
>
> I mentioned to my manager that I'd like to come up with a consistent method
> for listing dimensions. He said "fine, but whichever order you choose, I'd
> like to hear your justification."
>
> Are there any industry standards for how to list dimensions? Is width or
> height always listed first? If there are standards, what is the thinking
> behind choosing one arrangement over another.
>
> PS. whichever way you celebrate it, have a wide, tall and deep
> Thanksgiving!
>
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